Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕

wasn’t it? You and Samuel both. Until Celeste was killed. Then you were broken by grief and he had to manage alone.” He didn’t answer. I waited a moment. Then I smiled and gave a small laugh. “Come on, Sean. It’s over. And God knows, who could blame you? You did it for your family, didn’t you? Nobody knows who hasn’t been there on the front line, nobody can possibly know what it’s like, trying to pull your family through, keeping them on the righteous path, on your own, with no help or support from anybody.”

He looked back at his hands. “It’s not easy.”

“And when Celeste came along, she killed your wife, and in the same fell swoop drove poor Helen into a psychotic state. But you loved her nonetheless, right? God had taken your wife, but he had given you this beautiful little baby girl. Am I right?”

He nodded. “I adored her. I doted on her. I prayed every night and day that Helen would be healed, and I thanked the good Lord for giving me Samuel, he was my rock, my support. But most of all, I thanked the Lord for the love of my life, little Celeste. My child of Heaven.”

“It must have been tough when she strayed from the righteous path.”

“I knew she would return. I knew she wouldn’t stray far. I had faith that God would lead her back to me.”

“But that weekend was more than any man could take. After all the love and devotion you had given her, after taking your wife and your eldest daughter from you, to then turn and insult you and heap abuse on you, to fall into sin and revel in it, be proud of it, boast about it, and finally, to cap it all, to tell you she was leaving—leaving to live in sin with a man. The ingratitude, the disloyalty to her own family, to her father. I get it, Sean. It must have been too much to bear.”

He shook his head at his hands. He was silent for a long while. Then, he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Samuel tried to reason with her. She just gave him a mouthful of abuse. You interceded. Tried to calm them both, lead them back to the loving harmony of a Christian family. But she wouldn’t have it and you ended up getting mad. Maybe you hoped, after she stormed up to her room, that she’d cool off and come to her senses and apologize. But instead of that, when she came down that evening, she gave you both more of the same.”

He still wouldn’t look at me, but he said, “That’s old news.”

“Sure, but I am willing to bet that that was when she dropped the bombshell that she’d been having an affair with Lenny. But now she was dumping him and moving in with Chad. And then you realized that what your son had been saying was true. She was evil, and her evil was spreading, touching not just her family now, but old friends, too. Samuel called her and begged her to wait and talk. But instead of him, you went. You probably begged her to see sense, to return to the fold, but all she would do was scream at you.”

He shook his head. “No. You’re wrong.”

“Was it the screaming, Sean? Was it the screaming that made you snap and want to shut her up? And before you realized what you’d done, she was dead. You repented and put your arms around her. Chad saw you, standing there, hugging her. You picked her up, put her in the truck and took her to Blackstone’s. You broke in—you knew there was no alarm on the gate and no CCTV. You dragged her through the improvised gate in the fence, loaded her down with rubble, and dropped her in the river.”

He shook his head again, small shakes, still staring at his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“At first, we were thrown by your being bedridden. You looked so frail. But that isn’t a physical condition at all, is it? It’s emotional. You’re an emotional wreck, but physically you are an ox, just like your son. Your angina and your blood pressure, it’s all self-diagnosed, isn’t it? You haven’t even got a doctor. And when I realized that, I realized it wasn’t Sam Reynolds that worked at Blackstone’s, it was Sean.”

“I’m ill, I need you to go now. I need to rest. All this, it’ll bring on my angina and my blood pressure.”

I stood and went to the door. I poked my head out and asked the uniform sitting there. “Have they arrived?”

He glanced down the passage a bit. I followed his gaze, smiled and said, “Please come in.”

Geoff and Kate Blackstone approached and stepped into the room. Geoff beamed. “Reynolds! What have you been up to, you old dog? What is this all about?”

Sean covered his face with his hands and started to weep. Kate frowned at me. I said, “It wasn’t Sam, was it? It was Sean.”

“If you’d asked me from the start, I would have told you. Geoff has no memory at all, but I remember everything. Sean Reynolds. That’s him.” She gave me a lurid smile. “What has he done?”

I sighed. “He’s been cheating the Devil.”

EPILOGUE

It was still raining. It looked as though it would never stop. Occasionally, a human body transited across the window, wrapped in a mac or an anorak, leaning slightly forward, pushing an umbrella into the wind. I didn’t care. Nothing could touch me.

I was lying on the sofa, watching the trees bow and toss, watching the desultory passers-by getting wet. I had been propped with pillows under my neck and under my socked feet, and I had a large glass of Bushmills balanced on my